There is so much confusion and non-transparency (i.e., secrecy) about the various health care bills on Capitol Hill. Wouldn’t it just be simpler to post the bills and hope the public doesn’t have time to sign up for the Evelyn Ethel Wood Speed Reading program?
Well, apparently, there is a reason for the adamant non-disclosure of legislation that could cost each of us buckets of money and affect our health care. And you just thought it was the web master’s day off!
Newt Gingrich explains:
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee bill that emerged on Sept. 17 had actually been voted on by the committee two months earlier. For two months, the Democrats who control the committee refused to let anyone read the bill, not members of the committee, not other Senators, not the American people. Now we know why. While they held the bill hostage, unelected HELP committee staff made over 70 changes to it. No votes were held as substantive parts of the bill were changed or eliminated. Provisions that had been agreed to by the elected members of the committee – such as requiring parental consent for children to receive health services at school – were eliminated at the whim of partisan staff members.
I can’t help feeling that this health care debate is revealing deep flaws in Congress and in the way we are governed.